Supporting files

Contents

Introduction

This report presents information about the characteristics of
crimes recorded by Police Scotland within the ‘Other sexual
crimes’ category. This is one of four categories Police
Scotland use to record sexual crimes - the other three being
‘Rape and attempted rape’, ‘Sexual Assault’
and ‘Crimes associated with prostitution’.

The ‘Other sexual crimes’ category is made up of a
wide range of sexual crimes. The three most common being
‘Communicating indecently’, ‘Cause to view sexual
activity or images’ and ‘Indecent photos of
children’.

The report provides information about ‘Other sexual
crimes’ which have come to the attention of the police. It
does not provide information on the characteristics of all
‘Other sexual crimes’ committed in society, as not all
of these crimes are reported to the police.

The information presented is based on a sample of police records
(rather than all records) and provides a broad indication of the
characteristics of the ‘Other sexual crimes’ category,
rather than an exact measure.

The number of ‘Other sexual crimes’ recorded by the
police has grown significantly in recent years, up 50% from 2,901
in 2013-14 to 4,360 by 2016-17 (
Chart 1). This increase was the biggest
contributor to the growth seen in all sexual crimes recorded by the
police during this period (up 26% from 8,604 in 2013-14 to 10,822
in 2016-17). In contrast, the total number of crimes recorded in
Scotland during this time has continued to fall (down 12% from
270,397 to 238,651).

As of 2015-16, ‘Other sexual crimes’ overtook
‘Sexual assault’ as the most prevalent category of
recorded sexual crime within the National Statistics
[1]. This remained the case in 2016-17, with 40% of all recorded
sexual crimes accounted for by ‘Other sexual crimes’
– followed by ‘Sexual assault’ (almost 40%),
‘Rape & attempted rape’ (17%) and ‘Crimes
associated with prostitution’ (3%).

Discussions among Justice partners following the publication of
the 2015-16 National Statistics (in September 2016) suggested that
many of the crimes recorded as ‘Other sexual crimes’
could be cyber enabled crimes (i.e. where the internet has been
used to commit the crime) - and that new research would help to
gather a better understanding of the nature and circumstances of
this type of sexual offending. This research was undertaken during
February to August 2017, with the findings presented in this
report.